A little IKEA hacking

I guess it's been a while since I've blogged. This means that either my life has been boring and unworthy of blogging, I spend too much time on facebook or I am just too lazy to make a blog post. You fill in the blank and I will just nod and say yes.

Anyway - the reasoning behind this post is because of a longtime project I have been wanting to do. Living in a small two bedroom place is nice and all...but having two goobers:

(one who weighs 25 pounds) makes it, well un-aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a cat box always being ever present. I don't have a basement to shun their daily duties to...so I decided to improvise. At first glance - this looks like any storage crate:

The view from one side of the room

Another angle

Like I said...at first glance it looks like any door'd box (save for the fact there is a bag of cat litter next to it). I know that gives it away - so I'll just spill the beans. The big ol' box is actually a glorified cat box that I built to hide all of the cat nastiness and keep the dust to a minimum:

I made a convenient compartment to hold the litter as well as a nice 2 foot walkway to trap their litter. Throw in a 'door' that keeps dust inside and an air filtration system (stemming from the filter to the left) and you'd never know there was a cat box in here. What you don't see is that I built a sliding tray that the cat box sits on - so it slides out with ease. Tonight I decided to take it a step farther and make it even less conspicuous. Behold phase two:

A bookshelf atop.

Now toss in a fraction of the books I have.

I don't mean to break my arm patting my own back but I think this is pretty slick - and the bookshelves were inexpensive IKEA shelves/cases that look pretty darn nice. Maybe I'll submit this to ikeahackers.net.

North Carolina Getaway

Yikes...I guess it is time to play catchup with the blog. I know, I know... this just sounds like a repeat of the last year. I can promise that this time it isn't!! I am going to start out my' catchup posts' with a trip that I took to North Carolina to visit my buddy that I met in Alaska - Nate - who taught me gobs about fishing and is an all around great guy. I flew out of Chicago the morning of my birthday and landed in Raleigh a few hours later. It was great to see Nate again and we immediately headed south of town to meet up a longtime friend of his (I want to say lifelong?) who was living south in Washington, NC. After a quick stop for some NC BBQ we headed out to go fishing. 

It was a beautiful day...lots of sun...some clouds and ones with virga in the distance and a brisk NE wind (I was warm - Nate and Tom were a little chilly)...but the best news was that the fish were biting like crazy. I don't remember the exact totals now - but I would gander that between the 3 of us a total of a few dozen or more were caught with a few more 'quick release' and ones that got off.

Tom ended up with the big catch of the day - a beautiful red drum. We put this one on ice and took it home to fillet up.

Tom and Nate

The next day we drove a few hours towards the Emerald Isle and the inner banks to do more fishing...but the fish were just not on like they were the day before. It was still a blast.

We eventually made our way back to Raleigh and went to the NC State fair...for the food...fun and people watching. The freakiest guy I saw stood a good 7 feet...with a vikings jersey, mullet and magnum PI mustache. 

 Thanks again for hosting me Nate. I had a blast and can't wait to get back. Now...when are you heading to Chicago??

Merry Christmas!!!

It's been a while since I've blogged...but there are some posts in the works! In the interim...I wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday and Merry Christmas. The cats aren't fans of holiday celebration...and made the perfect card.

Semi quick update

I figure that 2 weeks between posts is better than many, many months...right? Not too much has gone on since we all got back from South Dakota. It was great to see the farm again and to see Nikki. Work has been on the boring side these last few weeks. There has been NO weather going on and that makes for tough times when you work midnight shifts.

I did manage to get sweet talked into trading in and up...so I am now on Subaru number two. Was there anything wrong with that last car? No, but it did have a pricey maintenance coming up. I've been eying this type of car for a while:

Subaru Impreza WRX

The model I looked at and ogled over was the 2009 and 2010 WRX STI ....

Having a 2008 Outback Sport:

First glance...and I can hear you gripe... "That doesn't look any different" I can tell you that it is... aggressive body...aggressive stance...aggressive all over - including price. There was no way I was going to double my car payments (even though the car had about 200 more horsepower...a girthy turbo and gadgets up the wazoo). Then 2011 came around and Subaru listened to customers and redesigned the 2011 Impreza WRX. I was impressed but never really intent on buying - though I did my homework. I took the old silver bullet into the dealership to talk to them about the maintenance that was needed and got to talking about the new WRX (or Rex as it is called in the Subi world). Decided for grins to talk numbers - never really thinking it would happen...but #'s came out in my favor and I ended up driving away with a massive upgrade that is costing me about 30 more bucks a month... I absolutely love it. New 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX Limited.

So what is different? 4 Door sedan (or saloon as the brits would say) vs 5 door hatchback. HID headlights. 5 speed manual vs 4 speed auto (biiiiiig plus). Perky engine vs not so perky (this car isn't as nuts as the WRX STI is). Leather interior. Sunroof. Aggressive looks...wider body and blue color that you can almost swim in...I could keep going and going.  The only downside is that my gas mileage will drop about 1-3 MPG now...at least the numbers say that...but I am averaging more than what the spec sheet says. Needless to say...the drive to and from work is quite enjoyable now. So often people drive slow by the car to check it out or other WRX or STI owners flash their lights or give a peace/thumbs up to me (I also do that in return). In the subaru world - that is called Subi love.

Next stop this weekend is a trip to North Carolina to visit with a buddy that  I met in Anchorage at work. Expect another massive dosage of pictures forthcoming.

It's time for a return!!

I've finally gotten around to the point of posting something...and something neat. Time here has gone by so fast and I have done a lot of things, met a lot of great people and experienced a lot of new things. Since I've been great (read that as bad) with posting... I thought I would get back into it with another video. This picks up from where the Goodbye Alaska video ends...following my last days up in Alaska with the Browns in March... all of the way to last weekend with the family in South Dakota. I hope you enjoy it...and I hope to be a lot better with blog posts in the future now!!


Next Step from Samuel Shea on Vimeo.
It's been about 7 months since I've posted any pictures or videos. A lot has gone on since the move...and like the 'Goodbye Alaska' video... this will take you from the final days in Alaska in March - up through the end of September in Illinois/South Dakota.

Well, hello there!

Haven't been on the blogosphere for quiet a while...and having to pay 14 bucks a day for the internet at the hotel has limited my interneting to the phone only...so I've fallen really behind on all of the blogs I enjoy reading.

Anywho... I'll be keeping this short as I am sitting at Panera bread a few hours before a midnight shift (I really need to head back and try to sneak in a little nap). Everything has been going great here. I've found an awesome place to live...work training is going well...the people at work are great (even if some are cubs fans...) ....severe weather is a blast...I got my car already and my household goods should be arriving in a week! Things are on the up and up. I am really looking forward to sleeping in my bed and cooking my own food soon. One would think that free hotel living and per diem to eat out all of the time would be a blast...but it gets old.

That is all for now... for all of the Alaska friends out there... I miss y'all...but I am not missing the snow!!! For everyone else around here... call me so we can hang out! There are a lot of great places around my new digs!

Farewell Alaska

What can I say? These last two years have been quite the ride. I've made a lot of great friends, learned who knows how much about mountain and marine meteorology and learned some tough lessons in life. I can't thank everyone enough for everything they have done and taught me....the list would be huge! But I do want to thank Andy and Lisa Brown for taking me in and being basically my second family up here. I'm going to really miss them and watching their kiddos grow up.  I wasn't really sure how to close out my time here ... but thought that making a movie with a handful of the 16,000 pictures I've taken ... fitting. The movie is a chronological pictography (I can make words up... it's my blog!)...and all of the pictures are in order from my first days here....watching the 2008 Iditarod to early last week when I was out on snowmobile with Andy Dixon and Dave Stricklan.

I made the video over a week ago.. but wasn't able to add more to it because the movers took the computer away...so the true last moments were not able to make it into the video. Like the Australia video from last year... it is best viewed on the Vimeo website - with full HD and at fullscreen. I hope you enjoy it.

Goodbye Alaska from Samuel Shea on Vimeo.


This last part really isn't intended for folks to read or enjoy - more of a 'remember this' when I look back at this years from now:

Long summer days
Beautiful sunrises and sunsets
Mountains
Mountains
Mountains!!
Fishing
Fighting Red Salmon
Combat Fishing
Halibut
Planes landing 300 feet away on the lake infront of my bedroom window
Catching up on the entire Lost series before season 6 started
Evenings with the Browns
COD??!!!
Watching Katy & Alyssa grow up
The whit and humor of jim
The vast amount of knowledge from all of the forecasters
Shaun randomly breaking out in song or heated wine discussion.
Snowmachining with Dave in some of the most beautiful country in the world
Chatting about the latest ASOT with Dixon and music in general
Moose Tooth Pizza
Bear Tooth Grill
Midtown Brown microbrew
Studded tires in the winter
Knowing that my forecasts would either make the day of the deadliest catch fishermen... Or make them curse the earth.
No sales or state tax (Won't miss the 'Alaska surcharge on everything')
'Alaska Traffic' (where a jam is going 20mph)
Being able to be in the middle of nowhere in 30 minutes
Clean air
Watching out for Bears
Moose not being the brightest lightbulb out there
Hearing about the fishing suicide runs